Accounting: post to ledger, quarterly and annual reporting,
auditing, overhead rate computing, etc.
Plant maintenance: schedule outages, equipment servicing,
replacements and repairs, etc.
Sales: get customer information, take order, check for
availability, agree on price and delivery, enter order, etc.
Etc.
In terms of Magal & Word: "value-chain is cross-functional" ==> Most of these processes interact (connect with) one or more other
processes:
Notice how in Magal & Word's
process descriptions of Procurement, Fulfillment & Production different department/groups (lanes in the
activity diagram) are involved and how they exchange information.
e.g., a change in plant maintenance schedule ==>
Production ==> Inventory Mgt. , Sales ==> Logistics, etc.
Plant maintenance manager informs Production manager of
tomorrow's unexpected shutdown of production line X.
Production reschedules the production run and informs
Inventory Mgt. & Sales (production delayed by 24 hours).
Sales reschedules delivery for the day after
tomorrow and informs Logistics of the change.
Etc.
Checkout of an item from the grocery store triggers the
ordering system to reorder supplies.
Car rental complaint triggers the preventive car maintenance process.
Etc.
In each chain or interaction, a node, party or element is either an information
generator,
an information consumer or both:
Therefore: most process flows have a corresponding information
flow:
e.g., Problem: (car repair flow chart).
For several of the links in the process flow, determine:
What (if any) information is exchanged.
Is this information transient (used once, then
discarded) or persistent (must be kept)?
What is its form (data type)?: Text? Number? Date? Boolean
(Yes/No)? Something else?
What medium carries it? In someone's head? Written down on
paper? Electronic? Other? Multiple?
Any modern-day process analysis and modeling that involves
information exchanges; BA371/372 class projects.
Welcome to the world of MIS Business Analysis.
Note the difference (in emphasis) between an OM analyst and an
MIS analyst:
Primary OM concern: performance metrics of the
process; e.g., cost, efficiency, averages and variation of
quality, process time, wait time, queue time, etc.
Primary MIS concern: process information flows; how IT can
enable and improve these processes.
Problem: How would OM and MIS people look at the 'Churchill'
excerpt?
OM: performance of the process: number of planes in the air vs. on the ground. Average time in the
air; mean time needed to engage enemy, etc.
MIS: supplying the process with information: number of phone calls handled; time required
for the information to make it to the map table; means of communication; reliability of data coming in, etc.
Joint OM/MIS challenge: can we improve process performance
with better/different information flows?
Magal & Work Ch. 2: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP):
A business consists of many aspects and components; all of
which have processes that constantly exchange information with each
other:
We have seen (Ch. 3-5) how manual, paper-based information
exchanges are inefficient, cumbersome and error-prone.
What if we could manage the complete flow and exchange of
information, in its entire complexity, with a single, computerized information system?
Magal & Word p. 33: "ERP systems... focus primarily on the internal operations of an organization, and they
integrate functional and cross-functional business processes"
SAP ERP solutions map:
SAP Supply Chain Management (SCM) solution map:
Data in an ERP:
Transactional data: all process-based, generated data; e.g.,
sales, P.O.'s, delivery, inventory changes, etc.
Master data: information about the links in the process chain; e.g., employees,
departments, customers, vendors, etc.
Organizational data: information that integrates transactional and
master data into information process flows:
Magal & Word: "organizational data are included as part of the configuration process."
Note: configuration ≠ software installation.
ERP configuration is the process of mapping all your business processes into the ERP system.
Reality in 1980s, early/mid 1990s:
Different parts of the company run their own, independent systems.
Problem: What are some
disadvantages of having to run multiple systems?
Problem: Are there advantages?
Computing in companies had 'evolved organically.'
Incompatible (noninteroperable) technologies:
Lot of data conversion back and forth.
Lot of work making and keeping these systems 'talk' to each other (inter-process
communication; interoperability).
Every time one of them changes, the middle-ware has to change.
Same data entered multiple times in multiple formats (Los Angeles DUI process):
Inconsistencies.
Corrections and deletions must be done in multiple places.
Second-order administration (administration on the
administration of systems; e.g., license admin).
Lots of home-grown, 'brittle' data connectors.
Very difficult to know what was really
going on in the company.
